How Inbound Marketing is a Great Idea for Professional Services

by Gayathri Choda Content Writer

Professional services companies provide their clients with specialists (for example, lawyers, engineers, auditors, architects, doctors and so on) whose occupational training and knowledge makes them an authority in their given fields.

As a professional service provider, in order to market your niche capabilities in a crowded market, you need to differentiate yourself from the hundreds of similar service providers. One guaranteed way of making your business stand out in a crowd is to use the Inbound Marketing approach.

Inbound marketing is an efficient marketing approach by which you can attract visitors to your website, gather leads and develop prospects, by distributing informative content through websites and other digital channels, rather than making cold calls and following uninterested parties.

Inbound marketing can get you valuable contacts that can be then nurtured into potential clients and eventually to loyal brand advocates of your business.

Here is a short list of some of the main ways how inbound marketing can be of help to you:

1. Create relevant, and useful content for your (potential) customer:

Make your website a powerful medium of showcasing your company’s subject matter expertise, rather than just a place to list your functions and your contact address. Publishing latest and in-depth information about trending topics in your field on your website will establish your company as a thought leader and give prospective customers a taste of what they will get if they engage your services.

2. Make your website “discoverable”:

Research shows that when a potential client needs a service, he will most likely first run an online search. Now, if you have a well-designed, well-written website that has been (search engine) optimized to show up prominently in searches, the chances of your business being discovered by the customer increases exponentially. Inbound marketing experts use (SEO) tools that can make your website content more easily ‘searchable’ by search engines, and thus get the attention of the customer in the critical ‘research’ stage of the buying journey.

3. Use your website to convert leads:

When prospects reach your website and have access to valuable information, they should be encouraged to share their contact information for further follow up via landing pages, which should have compelling design as well as engaging content. This information can be used by sales teams to engage them and solve their pain points, thus establishing brand trust and developing a relationship with the customer.

4. Unleash the Social Media effect:

Rather than keeping your powerful content restricted to your website, make sure to place it where your prospects are most likely to be looking for it. For example, post educational guest posts on popular blogs in your area of expertise; use relevant forums to talk about and highlight your company’s speciality and skill sets; and post topical information in popular social media channels to keep your brand name visibility high.

The Key Factor:

Remember, the one thing that a prospective customer looks for in a professional service provider is TRUST. And the best way to project trustworthiness of your professional services is to provide a wide variety of thoughtful, meaningful and relatable content that is outstanding in quality, e.g. white papers, blog posts, videos, webinars, eBooks, podcasts. The content in these should exhibit your superiority in whatever you do.

Inbound marketing is the smartest and most effective way for professional services providers to attract, convert and maintain a relationship with their customers.

To know more about the advantages of inbound marketing, contact us at www.digitant.com